The present invention relates generally to the field of data replication, and more particularly to changing types of data replication.
Within the scope of enterprise storage systems, there are various types of data replication. Data replication can be used for a variety of purposes, including disaster recovery, high availability, and business continuance. Often times, data replication solutions that offer a higher tier of data protection also have higher requirements on the replication environment. For example, single site copies, such as snapshots, can be performed relatively quickly with little to no impact to applications. However, copies that require site to site communication, or may even span more than two sites, incur either additional latency for the host (as in synchronous solutions), or potential delays between when a write is stored on the source storage system and when that data is protected by a copy on a remote site (asynchronous solutions). Environmental requirements, like more bandwidth between the sites, can lead to additional costs to the customer in order to avoid impacting the application.